The crisis in dentistry: why is it happening and what should we do about it?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 8 February 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week a great queue of dentistless Bristolians appeared outside a new practice offering NHS treatment. That followed a report on children’s health which specifically referenced the poor and worsening state of their teeth. This week the government announced a package to try and improve things in England. But did it go anything like far enough to solve the problems of too few dentists being willing or able to treat NHS patients?
David Aaronovitch is joined by the following experts:
Beccy Baird, Senior Fellow, the King’s Fund Ian Mills, Dentist and Associate Professor of Primary Care Dentistry at the Peninsula Dental School in Plymouth Thea Stein, Chief Executive of the Nuffield Trust Professor Claire Stevens CBE, Spokesperson, British Society of Paediatric Dentistry
Production team: Nick Holland, Kirsteen Knight and Charlotte McDonald Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Sound: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.4 | It was like a scene from the Boxing Day sales, except the much-filmed queue in Bristol was not people desperate for a cut-price fridge, but people desperate to sign on to an NHS dentist practice which had just opened in the area. |
| 0:23.5 | It was a pictorial expression of an increasingly worrying problem, |
| 0:28.1 | the sheer difficulty of finding affordable dentistry in many parts of England, |
| 0:33.2 | with the knock-on effects that has on the health of the community. |
| 0:37.1 | This week, the government announced a new plan to tackle the situation with the knock-on effects that has on the health of the community. This week, the government announced a new plan to tackle the situation |
| 0:40.3 | with the promise of more money to incentivise dentists to work for the NHS |
| 0:44.3 | and to get them to relocate to so-called dental deserts. |
| 0:49.3 | But will this plan go any significant way to solving the problem? |
| 1:00.0 | To answer that, we have to ask why these chronic shortages of NHS dentistry have arisen in the first place, |
| 1:06.5 | and is it possible that we need to rethink the whole business of providing and funding dentistry? |
| 1:09.5 | Step into the briefing room, and together we'll find out. |
| 1:18.4 | Let's start by finding out exactly what dental care is available on the NHS and how this has changed over time. Becky Baird is Senior Fellow at the King's Fund. Becky Baird, when did the NHS |
| 1:25.0 | first start offering dental treatment? |
| 1:30.6 | Dentistry was part of the NHS offer from 1948. |
| 1:36.2 | In fact, one of the earliest problems was that when the NHS and Care Act was passed in 1946, |
| 1:41.1 | people then waited two years to say that we're going to get their free dentistry in 1948, |
| 1:43.6 | and it was very, very quickly overwhelmed. |
| 1:49.5 | At that point, you didn't have to pay a contribution, but then by 1951, it was very clear that something would have to be done because the NHS had absolutely performed more dentistry |
| 1:53.9 | than I was expecting. |
| 1:54.9 | So they introduced charges first for dentures and then for other care. |
| 1:58.2 | How does the system of funding work? |
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